Honeybee

This piece was originally published in PHIL LIT Journal, Issue One.

The overflow of dirty rainwater made a steady noise as it dripped from the gutter of the tar-shingled roof and into the black floodwaters below. An invisible current pushed and pulled at the deluge, making it gently move as if it had a tide. The two o’clock sun bore down on the sheen of oil that championed itself atop the rancid, stagnant water. Debris floated by, and the standing storm surge carried with it an unbearable stench of decay.

Honeybee crouched by the edge of the gutter and counted the drips. “One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.” They had only been on the roof for six hours, but she was already hungry and thirsty in the humidity and heat of the day. Her red hair lent itself to porcelain skin, which was no match for the blistering Louisiana sun.

Her rumbling stomach reminded her of a prayer she learned in Sunday school– "Lord, we trust in your perfect plan for our lives. We surrender all our worries into your hands."  She didn’t think that her sitting on this rooftop was part of any kind of “perfect plan,” but she thought her MawMaw might disagree. MawMaw said they could live off faith until they were rescued. “Faith will feed us,” she told her granddaughter. MawMaw had a lot more faith than Honeybee, and Honeybee was hungry.  

At eleven years old, her slight, wiry frame made all clothing look too big on her. That included the purple t-shirt and jean shorts she was wearing, both of which had been soiled by the floodwaters. Her dirty sandals were somehow still buckled to her feet. 

MawMaw had begun to sing church hymns as a way to pass the time and as a way for the Lord to send them rescue from above. She sat on the roof, favoring her right hip. Her arms were freckled from a life in the Louisiana sun. Her white hair was pulled into a bun that was quickly unravelling. Her simple floral floral-patterned dress was stained with floodwater at the hem. 

Honeybee tried to keep faith. She prayed as often as she remembered, she sat quietly and listened to her grandmother’s hymns, and she prayed for the souls of her Mama and her Daddy. On normal days, Honeybee would join in with her MawMaw on singing hymns. She was told by everyone at church that she had a lovely singing voice. But not today. Today, it was impossible to find even a bird that would sing.

Honeybee wondered to herself if it was normal for eleven-year-olds to have crises of faith or if it was just her and how she was, or if it was just because the flood came and swept everything away and left her on her rooftop. She concluded that it was probably a mix of all three as she resumed her normal pacing around the small, flat stretch of roof upon which she and MawMaw had posted up for safety.

The sky remained clear to their dismay—no signs of helicopters flying their way over lonely Chalmette. They watched planes and choppers fly towards New Orleans, and Honeybee’s MawMaw surmised that “the whole damn city must be under Katrina’s waters” For as far as Honeybee could see, none of her neighbors were on their roofs. They had probably evacuated before the storm, she thought. Or maybe something worse. 

Gazing over the side of the gutter, Honeybee took a dizzying look at the putrid floodwaters below. Honeybee kept an eye out for bodies in the shallows. She was unsure why she had such a morbid curiosity, but she was always on the lookout. She had not seen one. Yet. 

“Helene! Get back from the edge or you’ll fall in!” MawMaw squawked at Honeybee. Honeybee knew she was serious when MawMaw used her real name.

Honeybee did as she was told and put the images of floating, bloated corpses from her mind.

“MawMaw, I’m hungry!” she pleaded, knowing well that her grandmother could do nothing to ease her suffering.

“I know, baby,” MawMaw cooed. “They’ll find us eventually, and then we can eat whatever we want. Maybe even a Thanksgiving dinner!.

All this talk of food made Honeybee thirsty, too. She eyed the floodwater sneakily. “It’s no use,” she thought. She knew she couldn’t drink it anyway. Images of floating corpses filled her head again.

“Why don’t you come sit down by me for a while, my baby?” MawMaw asked, holding out her arm in an inviting gesture.

Honeybee walked over to MawMaw and sat down as she sang.

“O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder

Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee

How great Thou art, how great Thou art.”

As darkness came, the temperature had dropped considerably. Honeybee felt as if her skin could finally rest. As if by instinct, as the sun set, Honeybee began to walk the perimeter of the small flat roof. She scoured the floodwaters for bodies, coming up empty once again. She blamed the dark for her lack of clear sight into the water. She did not know what the night would bring. 

Walking back over to MawMaw, she followed her lead and fell into her arms. The tar roof tiles were uncomfortable and held onto heat from the day. Honeybee felt as if she could finally take off the wet, bloated sandals that had filled her feet with blisters. The relief was instant. MawMaw offered Honeybee a place to lay her head atop her outstretched arm. They curled up together, and MawMaw softly sang a familiar song to Honeybee, for once not a church hymn,  and ran her fingers through her deep red hair. Honeybee felt comforted enough to drift off to sleep, feeling maybe a hint of safety and security as she lay in Maw Maw’s arms.  

In the depths of night, Honeybee awoke, restless. Remembering the events that led her and MawMaw onto the roof made the hair on her arms stand on end. On Friday, Honeybee’s Mama had decided to evacuate from Chalmette and go north for safety ahead of a storm called Hurricane Katrina. Honeybee’s Daddy and Mama squabbled over what to do with her. Her Mama demanded that Honeybee come with her, and her Daddy demanded that she stay with him. Daddy won out.

On Sunday, Honeybee and her Daddy had still not evacuated ahead of the storm. Traffic on the interstate was gridlocked with evacuees trying to leave the city and the surrounding areas. On Monday, Hurricane Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast, sinking New Orleans and drowning Chalmette under twelve feet of water after levees breached and broke. Storm surge rushed in with unmet force. Those who had not evacuated needed a plan, and they needed a plan fast.

Honeybee’s Daddy began stacking furniture high in the room. “Helene!” He shouted, desperation in his voice, “Get up on the furniture!” The water was rising fast. Soon, it surpassed the threshold of the front door and began to pour inside the small, one-story home. Honeybee stood atop a table as she measured the rising water by how high it rose on Daddy’s body. 

The sound of the rushing water was catastrophic. When the water rose to his waist, debris started to fly in, and he was struck by a piece of wood broken off by the front door and pinned under a couch. MawMaw and Honeybee both cried for him but were too far away, and neither was strong enough to pull him from the water. Daddy always made Honeybee feel so big, but in this moment, she never felt so small.

“Go to the attic!” Daddy shouted.

That was the last time Honeybee heard his voice. 

Honeybee and MawMaw hopped through Daddy’s maze of furniture as quickly as possible to find the old attic pull. MawMaw grabbed the cord and pulled, and they both climbed the rickety staircase with haste.

MawMaw pulled the staircase back up and shut them inside. It gave them a beat to process what had just happened. Neither cried. Not yet. They would not cry for weeks. They stared at each other, red-faced and out of breath.

“Now what do we do?” Honeybee asked timidly, unsure of what the plan was without Daddy to instruct. 

“We kick,” said MawMaw.

“Kick?” asked Honeybee, as if that was the strangest response to her question.

“Listen, baby,” said MawMaw, “We’re going to kick a hole in this roof no matter how long it takes us.” 

Honeybee was taken aback. She could not imagine her MawMaw–a wispy woman who walks with a cane– kicking her way through a roof. 

“Now, we’re going to take turns so we don’t get tired, do you understand?” MawMaw asked.

“Yes, MawMaw,” said Honeybee. 

“I’ll go first,” said MawMaw as she geared herself up with all her might and began to kick the top of the roof over and over again. She went on for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, until she was tired. Next up, it was Honeybee’s turn. 

Honeybee used all her might and began to kick. They kicked for what seemed like hours. At some point, they began to see light. They used their hands to tear the hole bigger and bigger until finally, they could crawl out onto the roof, where they were safe from the rising water below. 

The rising water without Daddy.               

In the morning, Honeybee found herself crouched down by the gutter again, counting the drips of water, “One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.” She stood up and walked to the edge of the rooftop. She stared into the floodwaters, willing a corpse to float by. She wondered to herself if the reason she was always looking for dead bodies was because she was hoping to see Daddy. Maybe it wasn’t morbid curiosity. Maybe it was love.

The day went on with monotony, and both Honeybee and MawMaw became susceptible to heat stroke. MawMaw’s hymns grew louder and more prominent, echoing the emptiness in Honeybee’s stomach. Honeybee wondered if MawMaw was hungry, too. Honeybee examined the small blisters that began to form on her skin. She popped them, feeling liquid pour out, wondering if she could drink it, wondering if she could drink her own sweat. This time of day was the worst of it. She longed for the cool night when she could lie in MawMaw’s arms while she ran her fingers through her red hair and sang her softly to sleep. She tried not to think of Daddy.  

She was thirsty and losing energy fast. She felt thirsty like the time she got her appendix out, and the doctors wouldn’t let her drink. Not even ice chips, they said. She thought about how unfair it was to be surrounded by water that she was unable to drink. Not even ice chips.

She thought about Mama and wondered where she was. She told Daddy she would “get a hotel north somewhere, probably Shreveport or Little Rock.” She knew Mama left at the right time because of the gridlock on Sunday ahead of the storm. She wondered if those people made it out of the interstate and got as far North as they could. Maybe to Canada. Maybe Mama drove all the way to Canada.

Honeybee decided now was a good time to say a prayer. “Faith will feed us,” MawMaw said. Honeybee looked out over what once was the neighborhood where Daddy would take her to play and have birthday parties and crawfish boils. Mama and MawMaw never got along well, so it was mostly the three of them. “Three peas in a pod with no room left for me,” Mama had once told Honeybee in spite. She hoped Mama was okay, wherever she was. 

“Dear Jesus,” Honeybee began in her head, “Please bring someone to rescue us soon so that MawMaw can get off this roof. Please make sure that Mama is safe and that we will see her real soon. And please take care of Daddy for me. Amen.” 

Honeybee heard MawMaw suddenly stop singing. “Helene!” She said, harshly, “Do you hear that?”  

A peculiar, yet familiar sound was headed towards them. They both looked up at the sky, shielding their eyes from the afternoon sun, and saw no helicopters. Yet their rescue was there; their salvation on its way. It was not coming from the skies, but bubbling up from the irreverent waters below. A boat was making its way towards them through the waters, dark and deep. 

Sometimes salvation doesn’t come from above, Honeybee thought. Sometimes salvation comes from the very thing we fear.